Like most of you I’ve been working from home for the last couple of months, meaning primarily that my dogs are getting a lot of exercise. There has been no sign of any slowdown in the ADA and FHA litigation business, so there is plenty to cover in this Quick Hits edition.
ADA – Standing
ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Spring has sprung edition
By Richard Hunt in ADA, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - Hotels, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet Web, ADA Mootness, FHA, Uncategorized Tags: ADA defense, FHA Defense, Gonzalez v Chinatown Hotel, Hillesheim, Scott Johnson
The Rite of Spring in the world of ADA and FHA litigation is a lot more like Stravinsky’s ballet – which terminates in the death of the lead character – than the bunnies and ducks that we usually associate with April. But whatever your spring festival, here’s the latest in the case law.
Corona Virus and Title III of the ADA
A great deal of attention has been paid to whether the disease Covid-19 constitutes a disability under the FHA and ADA. Crochet v. California College of the Arts, et al..,2020 WL 1815741 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 9, 2020) looks at a different aspect of the pandemic – whether injunctive relief matters when a physical place of business is only operating remotely. The plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction under the FHA to stop what she considered excessive rent charges. The court refused on the simple principle that money damages was an adequate remedy. This section of the opinion is worth reading because of its discussion of the principle that ordinary equitable limits on injunctive relief do not apply to the FHA. The plaintiff also wanted an injunction requiring the defendant to offer her the same level of shuttle bus service as other students. This the court refused because with the current California shut-in order there were no shuttle busses running and they were unlikely to start running before the plaintiff graduated. This raises the interesting question of how courts should deal with Title III ADA cases filed against businesses that are now shut down or offering only delivery service. Most cases will settle, but those that move forward will require deeper thinking about standing and available relief when the future is so uncertain. More
ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Great Caesar’s Ghost edition.
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Mootness, ADA Web Access, Title II Tags: ADA arbitration, ADA defense, Browsewrap, Clickwrap, FHA Defense, FHA Municipal Zoning, Hamer v City of Trinidad, Stadium Lines of Sight, Strojnik, Uber Technologies
“Beware the Ides of March” was what the prophet warned Caesar according to Shakespeare. It didn’t go well for him, but the latest batch of ADA and FHA decisions are something of a mixed bag. Before getting to that news though I want to make sure everyone who wants one has a copy of my white paper on HUD’s new guidance on service and assistance animals. If you are interested just email me. You will be added as a subscriber to this blog and I’ll email a copy of the paper. But now on to the news.
Standing and intent to return – the Strojnik factor
It is elementary that an ADA plaintiff must establish some likelihood of a future injury in order to have standing. Strojnik v. 1530 Main LP, 2020 WL 981031 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 28, 2020) is one of a small number of Texas cases addressing this issue. Judge Brown’s analysis is worth reading because it looks at the 5th Circuit authorities and explains why the “deterrent effect” doctrine is not sufficient to give a plaintiff standing in the absence of any intent to return. The “deterrent effect” doctrine is, in fact, a mis-named and mis-used substitute for intent to return. A plaintiff who never intended to go back cannot have been deterred from going back by some condition at the defendants’ place of business. Sloppy language and slopping thinking in the Nnth Circuit are the origin and support of the ADA litigation industry. More
ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Hearts & Flowers Edition
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: ADA defense, ADA Internet, ADA standing, ADA website, FHA Defense, National Association of the Deaf, National Federation for the Blind, point of sale devices
Happy Valentine’s Day. The last few weeks have brought the usual assortment of cases, some of more interest than others. I’ll lead with a personal jurisdiction case that has the potential to be important for website accessibility lawsuits.
ADA Website Litigation – an important personal jurisdiction case.
Quick Hits – Making a list and checking it twice edition
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - Hotels, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Litigation Procedure, FHA, FHA design/build litigation, FHA Reasonable Accommodation, Internet Accessibility, Title II Tags: ADA defense, ADA Mootness, ADA Website Litigation, Bike share programs, Dana Bowman, Eric Calhoun, FHA Defense, Peter Strojnik, unruh act
Christmas is over with lumps of coal and sugar plums distributed in ways that often seem unrelated to who has been naughty or nice. Regular readers will see just how little has changed in the course of 2019 despite some important defense victories in the Sixth and Eight Circuits. With most ADA litigation centered in New York, California and Florida the serial litigation business will almost certainly continue to thrive in 2020.